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Biography of Augustus Addison Gould

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Biography of Augustus Addison Gould BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR AUGUSTUS ADDISON GOULD. 1805-1866. JEFFRIES WYMAN. WITH ADDITIONS BY WILLIAM HEALEY DALL. READ BBFORE THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, A PHIL 22, 1903. (8) 91 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS ADDISON GOULD. The subject of this memoir descended from true pioneer stock and since heredity, especially of men of eminence, has a scien- tific as well as a personal interest, it is well to include here a brief notice of his lineage, derived from family documents. The earliest ancestors noted are Zaccheus Gould, of Boving- don, Herts, England, who emigrated to America about 1638 and died, aged 81, in 1670; and John Durant, or Duren, supposed French Huguenot, who emigrated in November, 1659, and in 1670 married Susannah Dalton. One of the Durens, grandfather of our late associate, was a builder of note and designed a truss bridge which he erected over Pawtucket Falls, near Lowell, Mass., one of the earliest self-supporting bridges built in this country. His son, Nathaniel Gould Duren, was born in Bedford, Mass., in 1781, and when eleven years of age went to live with a maternal uncle at New Ipswich, N. H. This uncle, Nathaniel Gould, adopted his nephew, whose name was changed by legal process to Nathaniel Duren Gould. Young Gould, November 15, 1801, married Sally Andrews Prichard, of Welsh extraction, whose ancestors were among the earliest settlers of Old Rowley, now Boxford, Mass. This marriage was blessed with eight children, three of whom died in infancy. The second child and first survivor, born at New Ipswich, April 23, 1805, was AUGUSTUS ADDTSON GOULD, the subject of this memoir. The father was a musician, teacher of singing, and an engraver, noted for his beautiful penmanship, earnest piety, and cultivated mind, but, like most of his neighbors, in moderate circumstances financially. Those who remember his household in later days recall examples of plain living and good breeding such as in the early days of the United States were not infrequent in like situ- ations. He was a man of deeply religious nature and a deacon in the congregation with which he worshiped. Like many young men of that day, he turned his hand to many things. He taught school, vocal music, various wind and 93 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. stringed instruments, led the church choir, managed a small farm, and in 1807 was appointed selectman of the village, a position which he held during his residence there. In 1815 he left the farm in charge of his family and proceeded to Boston, where he engaged in business, and from 1817 to 1820 was a member of the State Legislature. He taught in the grammar schools during the day, and in the evenings gave lessons in music, vocal or instrumental, training many church choirs and giving lessons to the students of Harvard College. He also urged the teaching of music in the public schools, and his own classes gave the first impulse to the public teaching of music now so general. Later in life his skill with the pen was utilized to engross the diplomas for the graduates of Harvard. Augustus remained in New Ipswich during his boyhood, taking his part in the management of the little farm, set in a sort of amphitheater among the hills, and devoting a proportion of his time to study in the common school, where he gained the usual elements of an education. At the age of fifteen he took the whole charge of the farm ; nevertheless a part of his time was devoted to study, and some progress was made in the classics. By the careful husbanding of the odds and ends of time and a year's teaching at the local academy, he was prepared to enter college, and entered at Har- vard in 1821. With his college life came a struggle, the fore- runner of many such by which his strength was to be tried. He had already come to know something of the barrier which limited means had put between himself and the things he as- pired to, and now this assumed larger proportions, such as to most persons would have been disheartening. College duties and exercises demanded his time, nevertheless his education must be paid for, and he must largely contribute towards earn- ing the means; and so by strict economy, by performing various duties for which such students received compensation, and also by hard work in vacations and on those days which others gave to relaxation, he at length fought his way through, and attained to respectable rank. In college he was noted among his classmates for industry, and it was there, too, that his taste for natural history began to show itself. He became familiar with the most of our native plants, and to the end of life never lost his love for them. After 94 AUGUSTUS ADDISON GOULD. leaving college, he held the office of private tutor in Maryland, and at the same time began the study of medicine. The re- mainder of his studies were carried on in Boston, and the last year of them at the Massachusetts General Hospital as resident student. He was graduated in medicine in 1830, and at once began the practice of his profession, having given good grounds to his friends for expecting future eminence. But his struggles were not yet ended. Until his profession could yield him a support, he must go out of it, and did, to earn the necessaries of life. To this end he undertook burdensome tasks ; one of them, the cataloguing and classification of the fifty thousand pamph- lets in the library of the Boston Athenaeum, was herculean, as any one may see who will take the trouble to look over the four large folio volumes he wrote out, monuments of his patient in- dustry, for which he received fifty dollars. November 25,1833, he married Harriet dishing Sheafe, also of old colonial ances- try, connected with the well-known families of Loring, dishing, and Quincy. This happy union, from which sprang ten chil- dren, of whom seven grew to maturity, was unbroken during the lifetime of Dr. Gould, whose widow survived him many years, dying May 14, 1893, at the age of eighty-two. The study of natural history was nearer to his heart than all other pursuits, and to that he could always turn, and did, when- ever he could command a few spare hours or moments to do so. He taught botany and zoology at Harvard for two years, and became a member of the Boston Society of Natural History soon after its organization. To the time he died, he labored for it, without stint. Here he was associated with Amos Binney, Storer, Wyman, and later with the elder Agassiz. For several years he was accustomed to rise at 4 o'clock a. m. and proceed to the rooms of the society to work on the collections, before the professional labors of the day were taken up. When his studies began to assume a systematic character, his first inves- tigations were in the class of insects, of which, at one time, he had a large collection. Among his first published works was a monograph of the Cicindelida? of Massachusetts, printed in 1834, and in 1840 he published an account of the American species of shells belonging to the genus Pupa, in regard to which he found much confusion. These shells are very small, and Mr. Say, who named all the species previously described, gave no 95 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. figures, and consequently naturalists fell into error. " I have received from our best conchologists," Dr. Gould says, "a single species under four of the names that Mr. Say applied to as many different species." Dr. Gould then points out how, by the use of the microscope and a careful study of their minuter details, the classification of them might be improved. This paper was illustrated by about thirty figures carefully drawn by himself, with the aid of the microscope. In 1841, he read before the Society a paper entitled " Results of an Examination of the Species of Shells of Massachusetts, and of their Geographical Distribution." This is the more note- worthy since the geographical distribution of animals had at that time attracted but little attention, and none amongst us. Now it involves one of the most important zoological problems. From his examination it appeared that of the shells found within the borders of the state, forty-two were of land or fresh-water hab- itat, and two hundred and three of marine origin. While some of the marine species are found on the transatlantic shores, he pointed out that of the air-breathing species a certain number were common to both continents, some of which had been im- ported. Dr. Gould also points out in this paper the influence of shore outlines, and shows from a comparison of species, that Cape Cod, which stretches out into the sea in a curved direction some forty or fifty miles, forms to some species an impassable barrier. Of two hundred and three species, eighty do not pass to the south, and thirty have not been found to the north. In the same paper he calls attention to the importance of the fact that certain spe- cies appear and disappear suddenly, and of the necessity, in order to construct a correct catalogue of the shells of any region, of extending observations through a series of years, a considera- tion which many naturalists, even of the present day, might profit by. In the spring of 1830, Osteodesma was strewed upon Chelsea Beach in great number, and of very large size, but had never been observed there before, and has seldom been seen since.
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